Since the initial experiments with interactive television in the early 1990's, numerous approaches have been proposed to provide additional, contextually-relevant information to TV viewers regarding what is then being displayed on their screen. One example of this application could be special offers associated with a certain nationally broadcast commercial that enhance the national message with localized pricing or availability information. Practical considerations regarding synchronizing the arriving broadcast advertisement and the local creation and display of the message to be overlaid on a specific TV set have resulted in the contextually-relevant information being displaying at an unacceptable offset from the actual start of the associated video segment.
Using prior art, the detection and identification of a specific video segment can take approximately 7 to 10 seconds using means known to those skilled in that art. Examples of such known means include identification of various video or audio “fingerprints” or detection of a unique “watermark” code previously embedded in the video segment of interest. However, by the time such a detection system can respond and the additional related information be retrieved, prepared, and displayed on the television, the video segment of interest (for example, a thirty second commercial message) will have been running for about fifteen seconds or even longer with the result being that the overlaid message loses its contextual relevance.
It is the object of this invention to eliminate essentially all of this delay by using a system and method that anticipates the arrival of a specific advertisement of interest so that the various required processes to confirm the arrival of the segment and locally generate and display the relevant graphics may be initiated slightly in advance of the actual arrival of the video segment of interest.